Objectives: To determine rates of pregnancy smoking concealment compared to behavioral observation and to identify factors predicting untruthful denial. Methods: Review of 843 delivery charts. Results: Based on observation during delivery hospitalization, 8% of smokers denied at hospital admission, 16% denied throughout prenatal care. Compared with those admitting smoking, false deniers had higher levels of education, incomes and adequate prenatal care utilization; and were less likely to have drug use, STDs, or hepatitis C. Observation was a valid tool for assessing smoking status. Conclusions: Typical concealers were those considered lower risk, increasing the chance they would go undetected as smokers.

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The effects of maternal stress on child behavior, especially externalizing problems such as aggression, defiance, and lack of self-control, are well-established within psychological literature. Few studies, however, have examined the effects of maternal stress on child internalizing problems, such as loneliness, withdrawal, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Moreover, there is much research within developmental psychology to support the notion that parent-child co-regulation, sometimes called dyadic synchrony, can predict child behavioral outcomes. Currently, researchers lack an understanding of how this process can interact with maternal stress to predict child internalizing symptoms. The following thesis details a multi-method assessment which is designed to examine the mediating effect of co-regulation on the relationship between maternal stress and child internalizing symptoms. In this research project, mothers and their three-year-old children complete questionnaires and a challenging dyadic task to assess their current stress, internalizing symptoms, and co-regulation strategies. Co-regulation scores are assigned through a macro coding scheme developed by a behavioral observation coding team. Due to ongoing data collection, data from a comparable project were collected to test this hypothesis using similar self-report measures. This study may have significant implications for the effects of everyday parent-child interactions on future child health outcomes.

ABSTRACT Research in GIScience has identified agent-based simulation methodologies as effective in the study of complex adaptive spatial systems (CASS). CASS are characterized by the emergent nature of their spatial expressions and by the changing relationships between their constituent variables and how those variables act on the system's spatial expression over time. Here, emergence refers to a CASS property where small-scale, individual action results in macroscopic or system-level patterns over time. This research develops and executes a spatially-explicit agent based model of Muscovy Duck home range behavior. Muscovy duck home range behavior is regarded as a complex adaptive spatial system for this research, where this process can be explained and studied with simulation techniques. The general animal movement model framework presented in this research explicitly considers spatial characteristics of the landscape in its formulation, as well as provides for spatial cognition in the behavior of its agents. Specification of the model followed a three-phase framework, including: behavioral data collection in the field, construction of a model substrate depicting land cover features found in the study area, and the informing of model agents with products derived from field observations. This framework was applied in the construction of a spatially-explicit agent-based model (SE-ABM) of Muscovy Duck home range behavior. The model was run 30 times to simulate point location distributions of an individual duck's daily activity. These simulated datasets were collected, and home ranges were constructed using Characteristic Hull Polygon (CHP) and Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) techniques. Descriptive statistics of the CHP and MCP polygons were calculated to characterize the home ranges produced and establish internal model validity. As a theoretical framework for the construction of animal movement SE-ABM's, and as a demonstration of the potential of geosimulation methodologies in support of animal home range estimator validation, the model represents an original contribution to the literature. Implications of model utility as a validation tool for home range extents as derived from GPS or radio telemetry positioning data are discussed.

This thesis investigates 'self-segregation,' the voluntary separation and clustering of ethnic groups within a diverse environment that ostensibly provides opportunities for intergroup contact. While previous research has demonstrated self-segregation within such settings, using either self-reports, observations of behaviour, or social network analysis (SNA), such studies tend to be mono-methodological and cross-sectional. I review this literature in Chapter 1. I then present three empirical chapters which provide both longitudinal data and comparisons between observations, surveys, and SNA: Chapter 2, with two observational studies of seating patterns in a diverse sixth form cafeteria (Studies 1 and 2), and a third observational study in a diverse secondary school (Study 3); Chapter 3, where I report an SNA study collected from the first-year students at the same secondary school (Study 4); and Chapter 4, where I report the results from a self-report survey in the sixth form college, where students indicate their cafeteria seating preferences (Study 5). In Chapter 5, I discuss these findings, summarising 1) the strong self-segregation, and inclination towards self-segregation, found in all studies; 2) the comparisons between the two educational settings, where younger students were both more likely to be gender segregated, and to increase in ethnic integration over time; 3) the greater inclination of Asian British students than White British students to ethnically integrate; and 4) the need for further research triangulating multiple methods. From these conclusions, I suggest implications for targeted interventions, and argue the continued (and indeed, heightened) need for the contributions of social psychologists in public and policy discourse on ethnic integration.